(* I archive frequently, and read feverishly, but a quick search found 2300 unread emails as I wrote this).

This is made much more complicated because I look at my email through three views: on my desktop, via the web (rare) and via my phone (frequent). Set aside the web; when I’m looking via my desktop I don’t mind if new messages show up in a folder, and folders help keep me organized.

My new phone is the AT&T Fuze which I’m coming to love. but like the Dash before it, it is designed to strongly favor the inbox. It will synchronize with any folders I want, but the tilt towards the inbox is strong enough that messages elsewhere are easy to miss.

(NB: I don’t use the "touch flow" interface shown here)

Solving All My Outlook Issues At Once

I have tried various solutions, but I’ve finally hit on one I really like, and I thought I’d write it up briefly in case it might simplify your life. The key, or me, is to

make sure that everything I care to see goes to my inbox

I don’t have to file (nearly) anything

Things I don’t need to see do not go to my inbox.

This is all accomplished with a couple very simple rules. First, I created a category called "Filed" Then, for nearly every person or group that I care to see, I created a rule that told Outlook to make a copy of the message and file it on arrival and to mark the original (in the inbox) as in the category filed. Thus, when looking at my inbox, I see this:

As you can see, all but one of the messages is already marked filed. I can then tick through the messages, deleting them as I read them, knowing that they are already filed away where I want them.

(I could use different categories rather than just "filed" to indicate where they are filed, but since I have a couple hundred folders that would get tricky).

Most important, since all the messages now go to the inbox (and are not "moved" by a rule but rather copied) I know I’m seeing them on the phone.

Here are my basic rules:

Anything I want to see:

Anything I want to file but don’t want to see

About Jesse Liberty

Jesse Liberty is a Senior Consultant with Wintellect, with three decades of experience writing and delivering software projects. He is the author of 2 dozen books and multiple Pluralsight & LinkedIn Learning courses, and has been a Senior Technical Evangelist for Microsoft, a Distinguished Software Engineer for AT&T, a VP for Information Services for Citibank and a Software Architect for PBS. He is a Xamarin Certified Mobile Developer and a Xamarin MVP and a Microsoft MVP.